


Momiji

by antagonists



Series: Kannagara [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antagonists/pseuds/antagonists
Summary: Unsurprisingly, he need not ask them to be his. It is only natural.





	Momiji

**Author's Note:**

> i cant believe yall havent written kitsune!yusuke yet must i do everything myself

* * *

 

 

“You’re late,” Yusuke says, draped over the top of the torii. He’s rather striking in the moonlight, what with his pale skin and devilish eyes, but Akira is rather fond of his sharp teeth; they glint brighter than steel does, like the white whisper of spells at his fingers. He seems to care little that his robes are splitting quite a ways up his thigh.

 

Likely sitting that way on purpose. He likes eliciting responses, enjoys when Akira looks only at him, as though he is a magnificent woodblock painting on display.

 

Akira merely smiles. “Is that so?”

 

“There’s a girl behind the gate,” Yusuke says, dropping down gracefully. “Her father doesn’t deserve to have her.”

 

Akira hums quietly, stepping around. His voice is chastising, but he’s already pulling out white paper, a well of ink. “You can’t simply steal children from their beds because you dislike their parents.”

 

Yusuke’s tails lash angrily, stirring the red leaves on the ground, but his voice is calm. “You _know_ why.”

 

“I’ll take care of him,” Akira says, kneeling before the sleeping child. He drags inky fingers over the paper, drawing crude spells. The shikigami flutter to life, traipsing up the girl’s bruised arms, leaking healing magic. They glow an odd sort of blue—a hue Yusuke hasn’t been able to capture in his paintings no matter how hard he tries. He keeps some of Akira’s old shikigami tucked into his belt, but they do not glow for him. “It wouldn’t do you any good to have an entire village after your pelt.”

 

“That’d be exciting,” Yusuke says, leans down so he’s level with Akira’s eyes. “You would save me, wouldn’t you?”

 

Like before, Akira smiles softly, and finishes treating the girl’s injuries.

 

Before the priest steps onto the stone path leading through the forest, Yusuke bids him wait, just one moment. He stares at how Akira holds the small girl, like an older brother would a weary sibling. After a while, he removes the outermost layer of his robes, stepping close to drape it over the girl’s shoulders. It is a kind gesture, but also a selfish one. Akira can smell the wilderness on the cloth, and traces of syrup on Yusuke’s lips. Yusuke is not giving the girl the robe, no; he is offering Akira another memory.

 

“I often forget,” the kitsune says, tail swaying when he notices the curious gleam in Akira’s eyes. “That you are human. You tempt us so—with such a sweet, rich soul, you know. And then you bewitch us so easily, like spirits to dusk.” Yusuke pauses, seeming to consider leaning in even closer to the boy who’d saved his miserable life. Perhaps to offer him a kiss, perhaps to mark his throat with needle-sharp teeth. Kitsune always have been quite possessive, haven’t they?

 

Akira doesn’t mind.

 

“Good night, Yusuke,” Akira says, and begins his walk down the stone steps. He does not need to turn around to know that Yusuke is watching him—hungrily.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, he need not ask them to be his. It is only natural.

 

“You can be rather intimidating,” Ann tells him, “And you’re nearly everywhere at once. We often wonder…”

 

“Wonder what?” Akira asks pleasantly. In his humble, plain robes, one could mistake him as a shadow in the darkness of the shrine. He is but a polite, young priest. One might expect him to be led astray.

 

He is not afraid of a phoenix, much less the darkness. Perhaps he is not afraid of anything.

 

“How you travel through Yomi so freely,” she sighs. “Surely it cannot be a very enjoyable walk. For a human, nonetheless.”

 

“I merely do what I must,” Akira says, and is quiet as he pours her another cup of tea. He’s tied his sleeves back with the ribbon Ann had given him. Red, like blood and sunset; red, like her. His skin is fair in the coldness of night lighting, but she knows that the sun would leave him golden, tan and beautiful amidst the swaying greens of rice and water. Akira does not mind holding her hand, even though she is fire, even though his skin must feel as though it is burning.

 

Akira’s hands are always so cold.

 

Thin white puppets quivering in the breeze, like stray feathers. Somehow, they are even brighter than the skies on a sunny day. She thinks of Akira often, on especially clear days, when the charred wood and stone caging her are particularly unbearable to look at. She is the fire, burning and scorching through the lesser demons that crawl near the villages around her.

 

He paints idly while in her company. On colder days in winter and autumn, he will often turn up to her shrine dressed as he usually is, shikigami trailing behind him like animated footprints. In the whiteness of snow, he is but a strange and somber presence, a shivering boy who travels through death and seeks gods and spirits. Shikigami are not kind, after all, to anyone but their masters. They dislike weak, human company.

 

Akira has nightmares often—from the spirits trying to break free.

 

“For a god,” he says to her, once, “you are rather lonely.”

 

“For a priest,” she replies, sipping at her tea, “you are rather sinister.”

 

He smiles. Laughs, almost. “I do have a habit of being gloomy, don’t I?”

 

Akira paints more spells into the brittle trees, carving in ink darker than charcoal to the weary, ominous trees. Before he leaves, Ann offers him a scarf made with the breath of fire. When he walks through white silence, he no longer feels the cold.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He finds Ryuji fretting over a dead body, fingers caked with blood, shoulders shaking in his plight. He calls the dragon’s name softly, does not flinch at the madness in those bright eyes. Instead, Akira leads him to the water, pushes his dirtied hands into the cold, purging stream.

 

Ryuji moans pitifully; the waters have never been kind to him, even though they are his home.

 

God of water—cast out of the sea.

 

Once the black has receded and Ryuji looks, for the most part, a mere golden-haired boy, Akira traces a spell into the air. Ryuji wears through his wards the quickest, like fire to an old, dry forest. On several occasions, Akira has found him passed out near a clear stream, close, but not close enough. The expired charm is now little more than a trinket Akira had given him so many years ago, useless from time and change; but, oh, Ryuji _insists_. Dragons are upright, passionate, and so _loyal_.

 

Oftentimes, he wonders if another could withstand a dragon’s affections. It is akin to weathering a storm, standing in the rain, sailing through black and unforgiving seas. Ryuji is clumsy, yes, sometimes leaves cuts where his fingers dig too hard into Akira’s skin, bruises where he knocks his head teasingly into Akira’s arm. But he is gentle in a way that Akira can sleep near water without fear of drowning, thoughtful in how he collects bits of spell and miasma in offering to his friend.

 

“You know how to call for me when you need me,” he says, runs fingers through Ryuji’s sweaty hair. He pauses when he reaches the horns, tracing the surface carefully. The scales trailing down Ryuji’s neck glint dully, heavy on human skin. In the water, they would shine clearer than mirrors made of silver. Ryuji gazes at him tiredly, fondly. “Ann gets quite worried, you know. About your leg in particular.”

 

“I’m fine,” Ryuji mumbles with none of his usual cheer. He’s always so mopey after a kill. Akira leaves him for a moment to offer a prayer to the body, bids his shikigami walk in a soothing circle around it. Beside them, the river runs on.

 

“Would you like to talk of it?” he asks quietly, eyes glittering bright blue. Ryuji oft stumbles upon stranded sailors, is overcome by anger when they are unkind and unsavory. Many who venture this far to sanctum shores hold twisted souls, and would learn well to fear even a god without a home.

 

“I think I’ll sleep a while,” Ryuji says, laying his head on Akira’s lap. Akira agrees, sets down his paper and ink. From the other side of the river, eyes peer out from the underworld, watching two boys and a ring of dancing blue ghosts.

 

It is a sea of red around them; the leaves continue to fall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


End file.
